Photo by Jeka World Photography

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Bull elk battling during the fall rut

Photo by Flickr member Jeka World Photography
See more of Jeka World Photography’s photos on Flickr

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Bull elk making the distinctive “bugle” call during the breeding season

Photo by Flickr member paul4227
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Your Photo Could Be Here

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Elk in a field on the Charles Russell National Wildlife Refuge. Flickr photo by by Nathan Jongewaard.

September marks the time of year when lush river bottoms along the Missouri River in north-central Montana are transformed into their annual splendor. In the late afternoon hours on the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge (CMR), golden light hits the fall colors of the cottonwoods, redosier dogwood, willow and chokecherry, illuminating a unique palette of color that lasts only a few precious weeks.  In addition, hundreds of elk congregate along the fertile river-bottom in the Slippery Ann Elk Viewing Area—a cacophony of bugles and grunts fill the canyon walls into the twilight hours.  With the nearest major city hundreds of miles away, it’s no problem getting front row seats.

What is the Elk Rut?

The elk mating period, widely referred to as the “rut” is a spectacular opportunity to view large herds of male elk bulls aggressively pursuing female elk cows in a ritual courtship.  This annual courtship is photoperiodic, meaning that as the days become shorter in September elk take notice and the cows come into estrus. Large bull elk are on high alert and will often fight to secure a harem of more than 20 cows and spend significant time and energy fending off smaller, inferior bulls.  Since elk shed their antlers every year, the older bulls grow a larger set than the previous year—sometimes growing as fast as an inch per day during the summer and ultimately weighing more than 40 pounds. Using these massive antlers, the dominant bull is able to fend off the lesser competition and gain the opportunity to reproduce.

This video I had the honor to film through a spotting scope while at the CMR.

Click here to view the embedded video.

How to Get to the CMR

As the best places often are—traveling to the CMR is difficult and requires a certain degree of planning.  Although massive in size (1.1 million acres) this national wildlife refuge is extremely remote.  Most adventurous travelers drive through Billings, Montana and head north for about 150 miles to where the Missouri River crosses the landscape.  From there, one can follow signs to the refuge towards the east and roll down the windows to listen for bugling elk.  For more information on how to visit this spectacular refuge please contact fischerk@nwf.org.

NWF’s Work on the CMR

NWF has been intimately involved with wildlife and resource issues on the CMR for more than 25 years. Currently NWF is working collaboratively with landowners, agencies and sportsmen to restore a wild, free-roaming population of bison to the CMR. Show your support for wild landscapes like the CMR by sharing this exclusive footage with your family and friends and by learning more at NWF.org/RestoringBison.

Bighorn sheep pair on the shoulder of Mt. Everts in Yellowstone

Bighorn sheep rut in Yellowstone

Click here to view the embedded video.

Two bison during the annual rut in Hayden Valley in Yellowstone

A tender moment during the elk rut at Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone

Scenes from the Yellowstone Elk Rut

Click here to view the embedded video.

A misguided mating attempt between two Pacific chorus frogs in Yosemite

Pacific chorus frogs at Gaylor Lake in Yosemite

Click here to view the embedded video.

River otter on the Yellowstone River in Hayden Valley share a cutthroat trout

Canada geese pair on the Gardner River at the north entrance of Yellowstone

Two bald eagles in Lamar Valley in Yellowstone

Pronghorn like this one in New Mexico are among species that need wide open spaces over which they can wander. The elk shown in the cover photo for this blog belongs to a species that migrates been high and low altitudes and needs habitat corridors for travel in between.

Beginning in the early 1900s and continuing for much of the 20th century, conservationists focused on protecting core areas for wildlife—biologically diverse habitats designated as wildlife refuges, wilderness areas, parks and other units.

But since the 1970s, scientists have learned that protecting habitat “islands” is insufficient for wildlife survival.

“Isolated populations suffer a variety of threats,” Kevin Crooks, associate professor of wildlife conservation at Colorado State University, says. “For example, isolation prevents animals from traveling to important foraging or breeding sites. It also heightens genetic risks, such as inbreeding and loss of evolutionary potential to adapt to changing environmental conditions.”

Biologists now recognize that protected areas, even seemingly vast places such as Yellowstone National Park, need to be connected to one another if wildlife is to survive much beyond the next century. These connections often are called corridors.

Here are five things you should know about wildlife corridors:

1. Many wildlife species need to move far and wide to survive.

Each summer, elk leave river valleys to graze on nutritious grasses and forbs in high mountain meadows. Some grizzly bears ramble over an area of 800 square miles yearly. Young gray wolves may travel scores of miles in search of new home ranges. During spring 2009, researchers with the Wildlife Conservation Society tracked a young wolverine that traveled more than 500 miles, from Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park down to north-central Colorado, the first confirmed record of the species in that state since 1919.

2. Long-distance journeys are getting harder for wildlife to undertake.

Roads, fences, rail lines, exurban housing and other developments increasingly chop large parcels of habitat into isolated pieces. This fragmentation lessens what conservation biologists call “connectivity”—the degree to which the landscape allows animals to move from one place to another. Steve Torbit, NWF Rocky Mountain Regional Center executive director: “Every time you put down a road, drill a gas well, erect a transmission line, whatever, it has an impact on connectivity. Wildilfe can’t just move over to the other side of the mountain anymore. It’s all developed. There is no other side of the mountain anymore.”

3. Protected wildlife corridors help wildlife survive.

Also known as greenways, linkages and passageways, these tracts of habitat link two or more larger core areas. Some corridors are naturally occurring, such as woodlands along streams, but others are made by humans, like the 42 culverts recently installed under stretches of U.S. Highway 93 on the Flathead Indian Reservation in western Montana to make the roadway permeable to wildlife. Another example is the fencing in 2001 of a forested tract running through the golf course of Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge in Alberta’s Jasper National Park—the 1,100-foot-wide corridor allows wolves to use a historical route through the golf course and gain access to low-elevation habitat containing elk and other prey.

4. Protecting strips of land between core habitats can help populations remain viable, but they’re no guarantee.

Some narrow greenways make prey species more vulnerable to edge-hunting predators such as coyotes, skunks, red foxes and domestic cats. In other cases, animals refuse to use their appointed corridors. Consequently, conservationists have broadened their scope to encompass entire ecological regions. Jodi Hilty, director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s North American programs: “Wildlife don’t recognize country, state or international borders, and neither can we if we want to maintain wildlife connectivity.”

5. National Wildlife Federation is working on corridors.

NWF’s Northeastern Regional Center in Montpelier, Vermont, is working with The Nature Conservancy and some 20 other private and public entities to create a vast habitat corridor that will connect six wildlife-rich landscapes in the Northern Appalachians and span a total of 80 million acres across New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and two Canadian provinces. Wildlife in the area—which harbors alpine vegetation, old-growth forest and large blocks of unfragmented forest—includes such locally at-risk creatures as lynx, moose, black bear, pine marten and fisher. Funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Staying Connected Initiative seeks to protect habitat from fragmentation and climate change and to restore landscape connections. George Gay, NWF senior manager: “We want to empower local groups and citizens through education and outreach.”

You too can help protect wildlife corridors.

Adapted from the National Wildlife magazine story “Freedom of Movement” by Tom Dickson.

The photos associated with this blog were donated by a competitor in the annual National Wildlife Photo Contest. If you are a nature photographer, you may want to participate this year in the 41st annual National Wildlife Photo Contest. In addition to cash awards, winning photos will appear in National Wildlife magazine and on the NWF website.

Help support National Wildlife Federation’s work to provide corridors for wildlife. >>

Take the desert southwest.  It’s consistently sunny and close to major population centers.  This would be the perfect place to develop solar energy.  But the southwest is also home to sensitive habitat and several wildlife species that are already suffering population declines.

For example-

• Desert Tortoise ( video)
• Sage grouse (video)
• Flat-tailed horned lizard (video)

Solar energy development in the southwest could hurt these species (and others like pronghorn, Mojave ground squirrel, bighorn sheep, and elk) if it occurs in important wildlife habitat like migration corridors or overwintering grounds.

Can an industry as new and as important to our clean energy future as the solar energy industry afford such a controversial reputation?

Photovoltaic panels used to collect solar energy

Fortunately, President Obama and the Department of the Interior are taking steps to make sure that solar energy projects are built quickly and in a wildlife-friendly way- for example, the recently released draft Solar Energy Program (Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement).

The solar energy program identifies 24 Solar Energy Zones on public land that could be developed. These areas, about 700,000 acres in total, were chosen because they possess all the right ingredients for generating and delivering solar power to the American public, but the Interior Department determined they have minimal potential for negative impacts to important wildlife habitat.

Tell the Department of the Interior to make solar energy wildlife-friendly >>

The Solar Energy Zones are a great first step forward.  They’re a game-changer that will  let us develop solar energy rapidly and responsibly.

However, NWF believes that there is still more that the Department of the Interior must do to make solar energy wildlife-friendly.

First, additional vital wildlife habitat (such as winter ranges for big game) that overlaps with solar energy zones should receive protection.

Secondly, the Department of the Interior might also let developers use an additional 22 million acres of public land (outside of the Solar Energy Zones).

NWF thinks that’s a bad idea because:

1. The additional public lands have not been thoroughly examined for potential wildlife impacts.
2. There’s already more space in the 24 Solar Energy Zones than is needed to reach current or anticipated state renewable energy generation requirements.
3. Rather than open millions of acres to solar development, we should establish a process for identifying more solar energy zones if they’re needed in the future.

Solar Energy Zones are a great idea because the best way to get solar projects built quickly is to plan them responsibly from the start.  By keeping areas outside of the 24  Solar Energy Zones off-limits to development and thoroughly examining the Solar Energy Zones for  sensitive wildlife habitat, the Department of the Interior will set a strong precedent for responsible solar energy development in the United States.

Tell the Department of the Interior to make solar energy wildlife-friendly >>